Zuckerberg Bombshell Letter Says Biden Admin Pressured Meta To Censor Covid-19 Content
It was clear to anyone using Facebook during the pandemic, but Mark Zuckerberg has now admitted that his company was actively interfering in the free flow of information during the pandemic. He did so in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, which has now been posted openly on said committee's Facebook page.
The tone of the letter is extremely corporate and we imagine at least a half-dozen lawyers were involved in crafting it. However, the content of the letter is still quite notable. Zuckerberg expresses regret that his company was not "more outspoken" about "repeated pressure" from the Biden administration to censor "certain COVID-19 content". He claims that his company "didn't agree" and that the company made its own decisions about whether to to take content down, but he also says that Facebook "made some choices that ... we wouldn't make today."
Zuckerberg also talks about "a separate situation" the year before. In 2020, the FBI contacted Facebook about "a potential Russian disinformation operation" concerning the Biden family's corruption and its holdings in Burisma during the lead-up to the 2020 election. Of course, none of this was "Russian disinformation," and Zuckerberg explicitly says so in the letter. "In retrospect, we shouldn't have demoted the story," he notes, while promising to make sure "this doesn't happen again." Sure, Zuck.
No word on reinstating accounts that were unfairly banned, though, and no restitution for those who were censored and shadowbanned. Zuckerberg merely says that his "goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another -- or even appear to be playing a role." Of course, considering that he's speaking to the GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee, we can't imagine he'd say anything else.
